Acute infectious enteric diseases, such as acute gastroenteritis, are second only to acute respiratory diseases as a cause of human death worldwide. Cholera, rotavirus and enterotoxigenic E. coli are the three major causative agents of acute gastroenteritis. Human rotavirus, for example, is the most important cause of infantile gastroenteritis worldwide. This virus has a tremendous public health impact worldwide, infecting nearly every child in the first few years of life. Rotavirus infection is responsible for approximately 1 million deaths each year and an estimated 18 million hospitalizations. 20% to 40% of the hospitalizations are for childhood diarrhea, which makes the rotavirus the most important single cause of diarrheal mortality among children.
Treatment for acute gastroenteritis includes antibiotics and metabolic support. However, adequate treatment is often not available, particularly in lesser developed areas where the incidence of acute gastroenteritis is highest. Prevention of acute gastroenteritis would be preferable to treatment. However, preventative measures, such as the provision of safe drinking water, are often inadequate or unavailable.
Therefore, it would be useful to have a new method for the prevention of acute gastroenteritis. Further, it would be particularly useful to have a method for the prevention of acute gastroenteritis which would prevent multiple types of acute gastroenteritis simultaneously.